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mardi 1 octobre 2013

Normedra intro

Right, done it! Took me some time and a couple of re-writes but now it's here, a little into to this Normedra that i keep talking about to get the ball rolling.

I will be starting another blog soon, keeping this one for medieval/Runissia and general stuff, while Normedra gets it's own space. Anyway...

Normedra was a ripe
fruit ready for picking. During Man’s leap into the stars they discovered many
planets, one of them being Normedra A cold planet but rich in minerals and
other raw materials, it was quickly set upon by many who saw possibilities in
the planet’s riches. Terraforming gases were pumped into the atmosphere,
bringing up the temperatures and animals and plants were set down to turn
Normedra into a new Earth. Within a few years there were hundreds of colonies
all over Normedra and raw and finished goods were being exported far and wide.

The dream could not
last forever. Slightly over a hundred years after the first colonists landed on
the surface, the terraforming backfired. Pack ice that had once covered much of
the planet suddenly melted, provoking massive floods that covered many lowland
regions and caused mass panic and flight to highland areas. The climate also
changed, snapping back to being cold and hostile, and in the fear and panic,
the companies that financed and kept Normedra alive pulled out and caused the
economy to collapse.

As soon as the
colonists had arrived, their grandchildren fled as best they could, often off
planet until a terrorist attack destroyed the main space port. Some still fled
on the sporadic freighters that arrived but as time went on the ships took
longer and longer to return, until they never came back and left the rest to
face Normedra’s vengeance.

What followed the ‘Great
Flood’ is a sort of ‘dark age’, many factories and other infrastructures that
had allowed the Normedrans to live comfortably fell into disuse and the land
splintered into microstates, bickering to survive as the weather plummeted,
killing many.

Thankfully, after
four years the weather began to improve, and the survivors can now look to
rebuild what had been lost. Factories and mines can be reopened, farm land
cultivated and towns rebuilt. In the areas deserted during the mass exodus
there lies a mass of hidden treasures that nature has claimed back; blocked
mine shafts, machines buried in caves or hidden under masses of undergrowth,
functioning power stations or plasma cores waiting to be tapped into, or even
underground factories that survived unscathed by rain and snow.

The Vikula Continent

The Vikula Continent
is a large landmass in the northern hemisphere of Normedra. A mountain range
runs down the centre of the island, north to south and the surrounding lands
are hilly and wooded. Away from the hills the land is flatter, with plains and
rolling hills dominating the rest of the continent. There were many mining
stations, towns and ports before the Great Flood, but many were abandoned and
are now lost in forest or buried under rubble and snow.

The climate is tundra,
below 0 in the winter and no warmer than 30 C in the summer, with an average
temperature of -3 in the winter and 20 in summer. In the south it is slightly
warmer, but not by much.

The Brovdo Plain

Once covered in
settlements, roads and rail lines, the Brovdo Plain is now empty of much human
life. Other than small settlements that live off the land, perhaps using old
machinery they had managed to salvage, much of the Plain has been claimed back
by nature and is covered in vast forests and rolling hills. Only one city still
remains, Brovtir, once a massive industry city where ore was sent from the
mines to be refined, made into bars and sent south to the southern ports for export.
It is still an industrialised city now, but far smaller and surrounded with
slums and ruins.

During the Great
Flood, millions fled the Plain, going south to find a boat going south to
escape the weather. Many did not make it as blizzards caused havoc on roads and
railways and in the chaos some took advantage of the situation to loot anything
of worth to survive.

Brovdo’s treasure

Despite nature’s
corrosion and looting over the years after the Great Flood, there is still a
mass of valuable finds to be found in the Plain. Abandoned factories or
shopping centres, old mines or oil fields, lines of trucks waiting to take
their goods south with their trailers still full, given time anyone could find
something.

Because of this, many
gravitate towards the Plain; the young, the old, the poor, the desperate, the
glory hunters, people looking for a new start or wanting more than life dealt them,
all are drawn to the promises of money and a reputation.

Bands in the Plains

It is a foolish
person who goes into the Plain alone, and many gather in bands and go searching
for these treasures. Together they will purchase some vehicles to travel around
in and to carry finds, weapons to protect themselves and their loot or alternately
steal the loot of others or raid their factories and settlements they have set
up or hold sway over. Such bands can number from a dozen men to a hundred,
depending on the leader’s reputation and success, as well as means to keep his
men supplied with food, fuel and ammunition. Most however are between 20 and 40.

Vehicles are extremely
precious in the Plain; a band with no transport is stranded, and in the vast
distances of the Plain going on foot might not be the best option, or not even
an option all together. It is not unknown for bands to disappear in the Plain
after losing their transport through lack of fuel or being crippled by rivals.
Many vehicles are trucks or jeeps, perhaps lightly armoured with a machine gun
or two for protection, whereas some bands acquire APCs, halftracks, scout cars,
or even tanks. Such vehicles might be salvaged from some ruins, captured and
repaired after a successful raid, bought from a mechanic at Brovtir or another
settlement or might even be scratch built by the band if they have the machines
and expertise. As such, vehicles in the Plain can take on many shapes and appearances.